Trinity House Paintings, will unveil Claude Monet’s ‘Waterloo Bridge’ at the private view of their New York gallery opening and inaugural exhibition: ‘From Constable to Cézanne | Inaugural Exhibition by Trinity House Paintings NY’ on October 19, 2011, 6:30-9:00 PM at 24 East 64th Street.

Simon Shore is delighted to be opening the new gallery in New York “with Monet’s pastel sketch of London’s Waterloo Bridge. It has such an interesting place in the story of Impressionist art, but it is also particularly appropriate for our New York opening as an illustration of a London landmark.  The gallery in New York will show case some of our most important works as well as ensuring that Trinity House can provide a more attentive service for our American based clients.”

‘Waterloo Bridge’, executed by Monet in January, 1901 from room 618 on the 6th floor of London’s celebrated Savoy Hotel, the drawing is one of only 26 pastels of the River Thames to survive from this period and the only example currently available on the open market. All other versions are held in museum collections.

Monet arrived in London in January 1901 and stayed (as he always did) at the Savoy.  From this exclusive hotel, he could look right onto Charing Cross Bridge and left to Waterloo Bridge. He intended to paint the Thames in oil on canvas, however, frustratingly for Monet and fortunately for today’s collectors, his paints, brushes and canvases did not arrive. He found himself, unable to work.  In despair he wrote to his wife Alice and complained his luggage was missing and he resorted to working at "many pastels" describing them as being "like exercises" preparing him for the task ahead. A week after his arrival in London his artist’s materials arrived and he conceded that things had gone well; "It is thanks to my promptly made pastels that I saw what I had to do."

The exhibition will feature a selection of important British paintings by John Constable, Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, Alfred Munnings and a work by George Stubbs once owned by the great American art collector, Paul Mellon.  Claude Monet’s view of ‘Waterloo Bridge’ will also be exhibited alongside works by other Impressionist and Post-impressionist artists such as Paul Cézanne, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Eugène Boudin.

An important work that was to be included in this inaugural exhibition is “Préparation en dedans”, a charcoal on paper drawing by Edgar Degas (1834-1917) which at the request of the Royal Academy has gone on loan to be included in heir autumn blockbuster show, Degas and the Ballet; Picturing Movement (17 September-11 December 2011). 

Guests invited to the opening of Trinity House Paintings New York gallery based at 24 East 64th Street will be treated to a quintessentially British affair, with valets sporting bowler hats and Savile Row tailoring and waiters plying them with English fare. If the weather holds true to British expectations, there will even be elegant union jack umbrellas at hand for the journey home.

Following on from their successful move to the heart of Mayfair Maddox Street, London in 2010, Trinity House Paintings has and will continue to exhibit at the world’s top art fairs, including Masterpiece in London, International Fine Art Fair New York and the American International Fine Art Fair Palm Beach.

The gallery will be open from September 15 -16, 2011 leading up to their inaugural exhibition ‘From Constable to Cézanne | Inaugural Exhibition by Trinity House Paintings NY’, private view October 19, 2011 6:30-9pm.